Did torture politics cost Zero Dark Thirty at the Oscars?

Argo, the movie about the dramatic rescue of Americans in Iran 34 years ago, won the Oscar for Best Picture. Zero Dark Thirty, the movie about the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011, won almost nothing Monday night.

Jessica Chastain, who starred in Zero Dark Thirty and was nominated for Best Actress, poses at a pre-Oscars luncheon. (AP file photo)

In particular, Jessica Chastain lost for Best Actress to Jennifer Lawrence. Ms. Chastain played a CIA officer who led the effort to find the man behind the 9/11 attacks. Many had expected Ms. Chastain to win.

One might blame Oscar politics.

When Zero Dark Thirty opened in December, to good notices and ticket sales, Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and John McCain, R-Ariz., strongly criticized the movie because it included scenes of detainees being waterboarded by the CIA at “black sites” in foreign countries. Sen. Feinstein believed that the film wrongly gave the impression that torture led to information that allowed the CIA to find bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan.

Sen. McCain, himself tortured by the North Vietnamese, agreed. It was a rare moment of bipartisanship.

The senators wrote letters to the chairman of Sony Pictures, asking for the movie to be labeled as fiction. They wrote to the CIA, asking first about any information the agency had provided the filmmakers and then for an investigation. They complained more when Zero Dark Thirty was nominated for Best Picture.

For the record, the CIA has said that torture didn’t produce the first lead on the courier whom the agency eventually tracked to bin Laden, nor did the identity of the courier come from a detainee who had been waterboarded. That detainee, however, was later subjected to torture, the CIA said.

Zero Dark Thirty’s director and screenwriter have said they do not endorse torture, but that they wanted to present a full picture of the hunt for bin Laden. The movie industry doesn’t want to make enemies in Congress. One could imagine Oscar voters deciding that choosing Ms. Chastain or giving any award other than sound editing, which the movie did win, would pick a needless fight.

Or, one could imagine that the mostly liberal Hollywood community did not want to give major awards to a motion picture that could be seen as endorsing the use of torture. Or, of course, the film might have lost simply because Academy voters didn’t think it was as good a movie as Argo.

What do you think? Did torture politics cost Zero Dark Thirty at the Oscars? Take our poll and/or leave a comment.